


secret dan folder

by calvinahobbes



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: 2009 Era (Phandom), M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 23:40:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29924601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calvinahobbes/pseuds/calvinahobbes
Summary: There are photos of him out there, of course, a hundred embarrassing ones on Facebook and in Nana’s family albums. But it’s always felt to him like people took them more because they had to or ought to than because they really wanted to. And here Phil is, feeling some incomprehensible mixture of shame and pride because he has a truly impressive collection of ugly stalker photos of Dan on his laptop.
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Comments: 17
Kudos: 111





	secret dan folder

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you Keelin (ahappydnp) for beta and Renée (yikesola) for cheering <3

“Maybe this was a mistake.” Dan mumbles, feeling like his eyes are about to shrink and whither and turn to dust if he rubs them one more time.

“Don’t say that!” Phil whines and hits him in the arm, which feels far more painful than it would under less sleep-deprived circumstances.

Dan shouts and punches him back, probably too hard, but Phil just giggles.

They’ve been editing the Christmas Adventure for years at this point, surely. They’re stuck in some alternate universe where nothing exists but Phil’s editing software and their own stupid faces and voices saying the same stupid things over and over again. Well, Dan’s face and voice are stupid, not Phil’s, not Kath’s. Kath is nice. She burnt a tray of cookies yesterday and actually said a curse word and then laughed when Dan stared at her in astonishment, the laugh so much like Phil’s he’s still thinking about it now, hours and hours later. 

Phil pokes him in the temple, annoying sharp jab that makes Dan want to bite his finger. “Earth to Dan.”

“Huh?”

“I said you could go to bed.” Phil has the audacity to look shy as he says it, a little hesitant in a way that makes all kinds of emotions screech through Dan so fast all he can do is blink and stare.

Phil laughs again, and it sounds like Kathryn, or it sounds like him, Dan’s not sure. He feels like his brain is floating several feet above his skull. There’s the artificial shutter sound of a phone snapping a photo, and the immediate adrenaline rush wakes Dan up a bit. His hands fly up to check his hair, which is probably a horrible ugly mess. 

“What are you doing!?” he wails, hiding his face in his hands as Phil goes full paparazzi on his ass. “Stooop! I look horrible!”

“You looked cute,” Phil says. “All sleep deprived and stupid.”

“Hey,” Dan says. “I look very intelligent at all times.” 

He’s expecting a sarcastic retort, but when he peaks out from behind his hands and sees Phil staring softly at his phone it gives him a sudden lump in his throat.

“Gimme that,” he says and makes a grab for Phil’s phone, but Phil snatches it out of his reach. 

“No!”

“I need to check that!” 

They wrestle. Phil squawks and squirms but he’s so bad at fighting dirty and soon Dan has the phone. He runs across the room just to be sure, brotherly fight instincts long drilled into him. 

“Dan,” Phil says and his voice wobbles weirdly. It only registers distantly. There’s a weird buzzing sound in Dan’s ears blocking Phil out, caused by what he’s seeing in Phil’s photo app. 

It’s all Dan.

After the ten blurry shots from just now there’s loads from earlier today during their walk, sneaky shots of Dan from the back, from the side, from low angles like Phil was holding his phone down by his hip. There’s one that looks like it’s just snow but Dan’s heart thumps uncomfortably because he knows it’s not, knows if he thumbs it open the heart motif will reveal itself, and he knows because he has a matching photo on his own phone. There’s even a weirdly artsy photo of just their cereal bowls. After that there’s a snapshot of Dan sleeping, hair a mess and dried dribble on his chin. God he looks so stupid! But Phil took that photo anyway...

“Please don’t be angry,” Phil says, voice small and thin.

Dan stares up at him, cheeks burning. Phil squirms in the silence, but Dan feels too weak in the knees to stand so moves away from the door, goes over to sit down on the bed. 

“M’not angry,” he says dully. He’s not sure what this feeling is except he feels even more out of body than being sleep deprived and cross-eyed from editing. “You took all these,” he says and it’s so inadequate, such a non-sequitur.

“I did.” Phil has that look he gets sometimes, vulnerable and stubborn at the same time. He twists his fingers awkwardly but tips his chin up, and Dan feels understanding strike him like lightning, because if he could he would want to keep that look on Phil’s face forever, go back to it over and over again and make sure he remembers it accurately.

There’s a grin slowly blooming on his face, a weird achy lump in his throat, tingles racing through the muscles in his chest and stomach. “You _like_ me, Philip Lester.”

“Duh,” Phil says, and it’s so soft and nice it makes Dan laugh. 

“C’mere,” Dan says.

Phil doesn’t waste any time at all, awkward gangly legs twisting dangerously and then he’s leaning over Dan, pushing their lips together, tipping Dan onto the bed. It’s rougher than Dan was anticipating, but it reminds him of the cool shock of making snow angels, and he shivers as he kisses Phil back, deepening it to make sure Phil understands he’s not angry at all, far from it. He kisses him until he’s out of breath and then he slings an arm around Phil’s shoulders, wraps one leg around one of Phil’s to make sure he doesn’t go away. They stare at each other from inches apart, warm breath dampening the space between them, and it should feel weird, it should feel like too much, but Dan just wants to drink it all up, wants to fuse their bodies together if that were possible. 

“I like you too,” he says, just in case it needs saying, and from the smile that splits Phil’s face it definitely didn’t hurt to repeat it. 

Phil rolls them so they’re on their sides instead and for a while he just stares, which Dan tries to let him. Phil traces the shape of his eyebrows with a finger, tickles it down his nose. When he touches Dan’s lips the feeling changes, though, his arousal which is always on a hair trigger anyway when he’s around Phil, sparking lazily to life. 

“I just like having them for when you’re not here,” Phil murmurs and then pinches Dan’s cheek when Dan can’t keep down a gigantic smirk. “Not like that!”

“No?” Dan teases, laughter bubbling up.

“Well, maybe also like that,” Phil smirks back, and it’s stupid, it should be so stupid, but Dan is growing hard anyway, his stupid body not caring in the slightest about anything except Phil stroking his ego. 

“Really?” he asks hopefully. So embarrassing. 

Phil takes a moment just to look at him. His hand on Dan’s face feels cold and a bit clammy, so Dan turns his face and kisses it, lips against the root of his thumb. Phil’s hand twitches, his Adam’s apple bops. Dan thinks they’re about to kiss again because Phil closes his eyes, but then he says, “Can I show you something?”

“Phil,” Dan teases, shrugs out from under his hand to kiss under his jaw. “I’ve already seen it.” He giggles. “But sure.”

“No! That’s not...” Phil pushes at him and guffaws, tongue twisting and eyes squeezing shut — and there it is again, that weird urge to capture it all, although Dan isn’t sure if it’s the view so much as the feeling, and whether a photo can really retain this moment. It feels enormous and frail at the same time. 

But then Phil rolls away from him, leaving cold air to rush over his skin, and Dan makes a noise of complaint. 

Phil goes to his laptop but then hesitates. He looks sad suddenly, worryingly vulnerable.

Dan leans up on his elbow, rests his head on his hand. “Phil. It’s fine.”

It seems to soothe Phil, who unplugs the laptop and takes it over to the bed. They rearrange themselves, cuddle up leaning against the wall, and Phil saves the video file carefully before he navigates to his extremely cluttered desktop and from there into his file folders. 

Dan’s heart skips a beat. There, in the long list of folders, is one simply called DAN. 

“What!?” He says and squirms and clutches Phil closer and basically feels a million weird nervous reactions wash over him all at once.

Phil opens it and inside are more folders. DB, Footage, MSN, Photos. He opens the photo folder to reveal a frankly stunning collection of thumbnails, seemingly ordered by date. Dan’s eyes sweep over all the little tiles, spots more candids, shots from Halloween, a mix of ones he’s seen before and ones he hasn’t.

“I want to remember everything, Dan,” Phil says, and his voice is so firm and calm despite the palpable tension in his muscles against Dan. 

Dan pulls the laptop slowly out of Phil’s hands, closes it gently and sets it on the bed. Then he climbs on top of Phil who puts his hands on his hips, stares up at him with dark serious eyes, mouth twisting down a little. He feels he should really say something to acknowledge what Phil has just told him, the implications of it, but he’s mute, emotions clogging up his throat, hot tears prickling the corners of his eyes. 

There are photos of him out there, of course, a hundred embarrassing ones on Facebook and in Nana’s family albums. But it’s always felt to him like people took them more because they had to or ought to than because they really wanted to. And here Phil is, feeling some incomprehensible mixture of shame and pride because he has a truly impressive collection of ugly stalker photos of Dan on his laptop. 

Seeing as Dan has no idea how to voice any of these thoughts, he kisses Phil instead. 

It seems as if Phil is equally affected, by the way his hands claw compulsively at Dan’s shirt, almost kneading like a big violent cat, and the pained noise he makes in the back of his throat. Dan snorts, which is pretty horrible kissing etiquette, but Phil clearly doesn’t mind. 

With Phil’s lips against his, tongue and teeth and panted breath, Dan gets to distance himself a little from the realisation that Phil is serious about this. It’s not like Dan didn’t already suspect, for a million different reasons that go way beyond silly declarations in the snow and into the deep dark small hours of the night. He feels his pulse calm down, his brain come back online, even as his arousal flares, solidifies, becomes unmistakable against Phil’s own answering one.

Pressing his forehead against the top of Phil’s, staring down into his eyes from so close they’re both slightly cross-eyed, he says, “I thought I was supposed to be the stalker here.” 

It’s a an avoidance tactic of course, yet another way to deescalate and redirect — sometimes he’s better with a screen between them — but Phil doesn’t look disappointed. 

“You’re supposed to think that.” Phil smiles. “It’s all part of my cunning plan.”

Dan tries to cough discreetly around the reformed lump in his throat. He plants another quick kiss on the perfect arch of Phil’s upper lip and lifts off him with a groan. Phil whines gratifyingly, which allows Dan to laugh and snag the laptop and take it back to Phil’s tiny desk. 

Behind him Phil scrambles awkwardly off the bed. When Dan turns he looks hectic, lips kissed red, pale cheeks flushed, shirt rumpled. “You don’t have to keep helping,” he says, voice sober and relaxed again. His hand rubs over Dan’s shoulder, slips down his back. 

“I want to,” Dan insists. “It’s our project.” He sits in the extra chair Phil has brought in. “If we can just finish the edits I could load some stuff on a spare drive and upload it from home?” He checks the clock and tries not to cry at how it has crept past 4am now.

“Would you do that?” Phil asks.

“Course.” Dan shrugs and ignores the way Phil is grinning at him. He reaches for the camera where it has been discarded on the desk.

Phil turns back to the video editor but doesn’t stop grinning. Dan feels that twist in his stomach again, that recognition of a perfect moment already slipping through his fingers. He turns on the camera and points it at Phil.

“What are you doing?” Phil scoffs.

“Meta, ooh, meta!” Dan says and zooms in and out violently because he’s obnoxious and horrible and maybe now Phil will finally realise. 

But Phil just laughs, that dorky horsey laugh he never does in his videos, and looks at Dan through the lens. 

“Come here,” he says, eyes dark, mouth pink.

Dan doesn’t know what possesses him to turn the camera around, to slide in close to Phil and point the camera at them both as he kisses him. Phil kisses back enthusiastically, and Dan thinks distantly they’ll never actually finish this damn Christmas adventure. He groans and pulls back, and Phil just smiles and goes back to editing like a normal, sane human being. 

Dan fiddles with the camera, but he waits several seconds to twist the view finder and play the recording back. “Ugh! Oh wow, some things should not be put on film!” he says with a shudder at the horrible angle he has captured his own face from.

Phil leans into him to get a view so Dan plays it again. The way Phil transfers his gaze from the little video screen to Dan feels almost physical. He’s quiet a moment before he just says, “It’s nice.”

“Hardly wank folder material,” Dan says idly and then watches in wonder as Phil’s neck and ears grow instantly red. “Phil!”

“What!” Phil shouts but he’s laughing.

“Do you have a secret wank folder?” Dan shouts too and shakes Phil by the shoulder with both hands. “Show me! Show me right now!”

“No!” Phil giggles. 

“Am _I_ in your secret wank folder!?” It’s a joke, of course, because Dan doesn’t really have any reason at this point to think Phil doesn’t have a folder (who doesn’t!?) or that Dan wouldn’t somehow be in it. In fact, Dan has tried his very best to provide subtle and not so subtle material for that folder for months now. 

He settles back in the chair with a tired, loopy giggle, brushes his hand along Phil’s thigh and looks once again at the soporific editing window, relaxing into those special tingles in his stomach he only feels when he’s around Phil.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. [Like/reblog on tumblr.](https://calvinahobbes.tumblr.com/post/645112592489119744)


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